That’s my Angels & Airwaves photo being used illegally on the A&A page on lala.com. They appropriated my photo from Flickr despite it clearly being labeled “ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.”Why do companies jump through all the music related copyright hoops and then go to Flickr and steal photos?
Are photo-related copyrights somehow less important?
I think not.
I suppose they think linking back to my Flickr photo lets them off the hook, but they are wrong. All Rights Reserved means exactly that.
The thing that really burns me up about this is by using this image, they could be getting me into a ton of trouble. Many times bands make me sign a contract that states I will not use the photos I take for commercial gains or reuse them on other sites, and by Lala.com stealing my photo, they are doing just that.
If you wonder why less and less of my work is ending up on Flickr, now you know.A huge tip of the hat to the lovely Kathryn Yu (one of the best photographers around) for giving me the heads up.**UPDATE** – A few hours after this post went up Lala.com has taken down all the artist photos on their site. The Modern Age, a fellow victim, has a much more eloquent take on the whole matter. There is also a very long Flickr thread about this whole situation. I was lucky, they only stole one of my photos. They stole 17 photos from Kathryn Yu. 17!

Total wankers. I was cringing the entire time.
I covered this show as a favor for a Flickr friend that had to bow out at the last minute. That’s the last time I’ll be seeing these jokers. More photos will be online soon, I’ll post a link to the entire set of photos when they are up.**UPDATE**More photos here.

Yes! – The Red Sox are playing Tampa Bay in the ALCS. Rock!Maybe? Hey, The Future Mrs. Leaf and I are going to be in Florida next week! Maybe we can scalp tickets and go to one of the games! YaWooooo! Nomah!Crap. They’re in Boston when we are down there. Oh well. But after attending Game One of the NBA Finals in which the MIGHTY Boston Celtics bitch-slapped the pathetic LA Lakers (and all the “experts”) to win their 17th NBA title, perhaps I should not push my luck.
Besides, We’ll be down there for Honeymoon, Part One.
That’s right, we are getting married this weekend. The site won’t be updated for a while, but I hope you’ll still be here when we get back.
Rock.
PS – Celtics v Sixers tonight in preseason action. It’s On!
Basketball, I missed you.

Seems like the price on everything has shot up in the last month or so, especially breakfast products. My regular sized smoothie at Robeks went from $4.94 to $5.13 three weeks ago and then today my bagel & small OJ pairing at Au Bon Pain went from $4.80 to $5.18. Guess it is time to stop eating out.
Did they talk about this during the debate last night or was it all shout outs to their grade schools?

Sunday: The Mars Volta @ Ram’s Head Live: Imagine a combination of Prince, James Brown and the worst prog rock you have ever heard. That’s The Mars Volta. One guy was playing the flute! Visually compelling, but basically unlistenable. Not my thing at all, but I took a friend and he absolutely loved them. Can you believe they sold out Ram’s Head Live at $41 a pop? Yes, forty one American dollars to see The Mars Volta. Heckuva country we live in.
Last Night: Built To Spill and The Meat Puppets @ 9:30 Club: Quite possibly one of the worst shows I have seen all year. I might be going out on a limb here, but I would imagine Doug Martsch has made enough money over the course of his career to buy more than one guitar. Perhaps if he employed these extra instruments in the live arena the audience wouldn’t have to wait five minutes in between songs while he tuned up. Not that it mattered much, when the band was playing they were sleepy and boring, which is saying something when you have as good a drummer as Scott Plouf (ex-Spinanes!) behind the kit. The Meat Puppets, who I was intrigued about seeing, should have hung it up a while ago. Total dreck.

9/11 might have been seven years ago, but I still think about it quite often and it affects me to this day. I started blogging because of it and, now that I think about it, also started down the path of being a photographer.
You can see all of my 9/11 photos over on Flickr. I wrote up my experiences from the day two years ago on the 5th anniversary.

…and say a prayer for record producer Jerry Finn. He recently suffered a brain hemorrhage and is recovering in intensive care out in LA. He is only 38 and has many more records to produce before his time on Earth is done. I used to work at the company that managed Jerry and have nothing but good things to say about the guy. Hang in there Jerry.

Being a music blogger of some repute (ill or otherwise), I am used to getting bombarded with emails from people hawking their band/client’s latest release, tour, video and/or what-have-you. But it’s been out of control lately. A while back I had plans to do a big report on all the promotional messages I received over the course of a week, but then I got so many of them I never had time to put it all together. I think, generally, I get around 30 promotional emails a day, on average.
But yesterday was out of control. As of 11:02 p.m. on Tuesday, July 8th, I had received 67 various promotional emails during the course of the day. Here’s a not-so-quick breakdown:61 of those emails were music related. A majority of them were deleted upon receipt.17 were promoting new releases (Tuesday is new release day).16 of the emails were from indie labels.15 were from promotional marketing companies. Artists and labels hire these companies to get more people working on getting the word out on a particular record.14 mentioned specific gigs or upcoming tours.12 of the emails were from PR agencies.10 had subject lines that referred to access to a MP3 file.7 were promoting a new video or some sort of live video footage.7 of the emails were from people companies I had ever heard of before and therefore have no idea what they actually are (Label, PR, Promo, etc.)6 were from retail companies (i.e. no one promoting any music – JetBlue, Amazon, Crate & Barrel, etc.)6 invited me to gigs in NYC, none of which I would ever be able to attend. I was actually surprised at this number. It was much lower than usual. Must be a slow week up there.5 number of times Mr. Pink meowed at me, seemingly annoyed, while I put this list together.3 were touting radio performances. The stations mentioned – KEXP, WNYC and NPR.3 were weekly newsletters – none of which I signed up for.3 of the emails were from the artist themselves.2 the number of artists I got multiple emails about. That would be Albert Hammond, Jr. and Chromeo with two each.2 of the emails were from major labels.1 email was regarding Kanye West.
Whew.
But here’s the point of this. Guess how many of these emails are currently not sitting in the trash in my Gmail account right now.
One.
So congratulations Mute Records! Your email promising me “New music from M83, Goldfrapp and Moby” made it to the top of the promotional heap for Tuesday, July 8th, 2008. I love me some Goldfrapp.
See and hear some of the the material they are promoting in the email after the jump.

About

Kyle Gustafson is a web editor, freelance photographer and blogger based in Washington D.C. Online since 2003, Information Leafblower features photos, links and commentary about a wide range of topics, most frequently music, sports and photography. And, cat pictures. Lots of cat pictures.